Human beings communicate in a variety of different ways and various communication devices have been developed to permit and facilitate such communications. The popularity of e-mail, instant messaging, pagers and mobile telephones demonstrates the appetite of the public for systems that permit people to communicate with each other regardless of where people are or the activities in which they are engaged. The systems and methods described in this application may be used to provide enhancements to existing communications systems and/or to facilitate communications using devices such as game machines that traditionally have had only limited use as communication devices. For example, as more sophisticated game machines (both hand-held and consoles) provide connections to the Internet, to mobile telephones, to pagers, and the like, it would be desirable to provide systems and methods that enable and/or enhance communications with other people including other users of game machines.
This application describes the use of a library of pictorial characters (“symbola”) that can be used to replace one or more words or even one or more full sentences of a message for communication to one or more people. In the context of an electronic communication device, a person (“sending party”) can use symbola to “encode” words or sentences of a message to be sent to another person (“receiving party”). The receiving party, upon receiving the message, decodes the coded message and, if appropriate or desired, replies to the message. The communication devices used by the sending and receiving parties can be provided with various symbola-related features. For example, the communication devices may be provided with processing circuitry that conditions the use of a particular symbola character for sending messages upon prior entry of a valid authorization (unlocking) code for that character. Alternatively or additionally, the processing circuitry of the communication devices may be responsive to received messages for proposing to the receiving party suggested meanings for one or more of the symbola characters.
These and many other features and advantages will be better and more completely understood by referring to the following detailed description of example embodiments in conjunction with the drawings.